Fuori Dal Mar
by LuckyDuck932
Summary: Merman!Lampwick/Prince!Pinocchio Always discontented with life under the sea, Lampwick is much more interested in humans. When he saves one from drowning, an act forbidden by the kingdom of the merfolk, he decides it's time to trade in his tail for legs. But becoming human proves to be pricey and means giving something more than swimming up to get out of the sea.


**Author's Note: As promised, the start of the full-length adaptation of **_**The Little Mermaid **_** with merman!Lampwick and prince!Pinocchio. A combination of both of my favorite Disney movies. This will follow the basic story format of **_**Little Mermaid**_** but of course there will be a lot of my own Pinocchwick flairs on things. Enjoy!**

_**Fuori Dal Mar**_

There are many mysterious things in the world, things that are beyond human understanding. However, it is in our nature to be extremely curious. But when we are curious about things we do not understand that are beyond our reach, we often like to make up folklore to settle our uncertainties.

The sea has always captured the imagination of What goes on the sea floor? What is deep below the waves – more precisely, _who_? Yes, there has been many occurrences that have been taking place from the dawn of human history regarding the ocean. And, as human nature, a lot of the blame on these mysterious is attaches with merfolk, the people who live in the world below water.

Their existence has the same, if not more, amount of curiosity surrounding them. Hence, why there is so much folklore about them, particularly in places directly by the sea. Even from there, every place has their own opinions on what are true about these mysterious sirens and they were simply passed down to others by word of mouth.

Which was why, on a wonderfully nice, albeit a little foggy, a group of sailors decided to spin a yarn about what goes on in the fathoms below when they had docked for fishing.

"The sea is as smooth as marble this morning," a sailor remarked brightly. "The merfolk must been in a good mood!" Although he was saying this to no one in particular he received a few good-tempered murmurs of agreement but also the ear of an especially curious passenger of the boat.

This passenger of the boat was remarkable other than his inquisitive nature as he was the prince of this kingdom by the sea and while he was not in court, he had the hobby of sea-faring with his father, the king.

"Merfolk?" The young man parroted. His big, blue eyes only conveyed his curiosity more. "What do they have to do with the weather?"

"Why, everybody knows that the good weather is the going of happy sirens!" The sailor remarked with a chuckle.

The king, who was helping another sailor hoist up a net of flopping tuna nearby, shook his head. "No, no. Siren's don't control the weather. Pinocchio, that's nautical nonsense!"

But the father added, "That's not to say they aren't down there! Watching over the sailors and protecting them. I bet right now they're looking up at us from below!"

Pinocchio took a little comfort in the idea, that there were "people" down there, although he was once again hit with the ever-present human desire to know more. He looked out at the ocean that misty morning and wondered if there was anyone down under the boat, a lovely mermaid. Although he knew he could never really know for sure.

But if only Pinocchio knew that there was, in fact, a merperson under the boat. He had been right on that matter.

What he didn't get correct, however, was the fact that this merperson was no mermaid but rather a merman. And a rather rebellious merman at that.

He was loafing around on a rock, watching the large shadow of a boat bob up and down with the gentle current. Watching boats from the water below, their blurry dark shadows skimming through the water like clouds in the sky was a pastime of his when he had nothing to do.

But today he _did_ have something to do and it was pretty important. It was just he was waiting on a certain guppy of a fish to get the nerve to swim over here so he could start what he wanted to do. He couldn't do it alone and although yeah, the scared little blue tang that was his friend wasn't his first choice as partner-in-crime, but he'd do. An' besides, he wasn't a snitch like some of the other so-called "friends" he had done pranks with before. All of those shrimps backed out when trouble had arisen and tattled on him to his ma like a buncha saps. Pathetic!

But Alexander wasn't like all of them other fish. Sure he could be whiny and a guppy at times but he never ever went home to cry to his mama about what they were doing. He had to admire the fish's loyalty. That still didn't mean that the merman didn't get annoyed at Alexander from time to time, though.

Like when he came swimming his merry way to the merman at least fifteen minutes late.

The merman sat up on the rocks and glared at the fish swimming towards him.

"Yer late," the merman scolded.

"I-I know, Lampwick!" Alexander exclaimed. "I'm sorry! But I just had a. . . a thing I need to take care of-"

"Sure ya did," Lampwick interrupted, crossing his arms and looking quizzically at the fish. "What kinda thing?"

Alexander was taken by surprise by the question. "Oh. . .uh, well that doesn't really matter! I'm here now and that's what counts!" The fish didn't really want to add more to his explanation of his tardiness. He dealt with the matter by switching the subject. "So what are we doing today?"

Lampwick was eager to his friend the plans he had in store for them today, so he dove right into the matter. "Well I found somethin' the other day in one of them shipwrecks." He grabbed the object and displayed it to Alexander. "Lookie here!"

The object looked like one of the human character for writing that Lampwick had seen every now again when he ventured up there and was made out of wood with a little bit of very stretchy material holding a bit of fabric back between the two sticks of the object. At first, Lampwick wasn't sure what it was, but with some experimentation he found he could hit stuff with pebbles by placing the small rocks on the piece of fabric and pulling back at the stretchy material.

Alexander was bemused by the human artifact. "Wow," he said in amazement but he quickly squinted his eyes in curiosity at it. "W-what. . .what _is _it, Lampwick?"

The merman's guess was as good as anyone else's. "I dunno, but ya can hit stuff with it." Lampwick reached over to pick up a pebble laying near-by for a demonstration. "Here – watch!"

He loaded the rock into place, stretched the material back as it could go, shutting one of his eyes and sticking his tongue out at the merman aimed at the closest thing available – another rock. The pebble shot through the water and ricocheted of the bolder once it hit.

"Wow!" Alexander exclaimed approvingly. "So, what are you going to do with that?"

"Well I was thinkin' we could pick on Monstro."

Most could agree that even mentioning the name of the whale took a lot of bravery; most fish scurried away as fast as their fins could carry them in fear that the sound of the whale's name would bring him over and they would become nothing but a snack for him.

Alexander, being a fish, instinctively freaked out; _how _could Lampwick say this name without even blinking in fear! At once, Alexander began his typical attempts to convince his friend to not go forward with their prank.

"B-but, Lampwick! Don't you know how _dangerous_ Monstro is! He eats whole ships! A fish and a merman are nothing to him – w-we could become his mid-morning meal! He'd gobble us up! No, this is a bad –"

Lampwick wasn't going to take any of Alexander's persistence to chicken out. With crossed arms, he told his friend, "Look. If you're gonna be a big guppy about it, then ya can stay behind. "

"I-I just might! I think I will!" The fish turned to swim away.

"'S your lose, pal." Lampwick called after him. "So long!"

Lampwick started to swim in the opposite direction with only the strange human object as his only companion on this prank. He went slowly in the water, waiting for what was inevitable.

"Wait. . . "a gentle voice called after him.

As much as the victim of this particular bother Alexander, he hated to be left out of anything Lampwick did. It was in the fish's nature to tag-along, to clutch on other fish's tails, and to do whatever they told him even if the idea in question was life-threatening. Who was he to deny that loyalty to his friend?

A smirk splitting his face, Lampwick turned around and said smugly, "I knew you'd come aroun' sometime!" He motioned with a jerk of his shoulder. "C'mon!"

And so the merman and the fish swam out into deeper water and deeper trouble. Gradually, they left their home in the sea where the sun's submerged rays made the water light that it almost felt like surface daylight to deep where the sun struggled to reach making the water around them an inky blue. Many fish and merfolk didn't even dare go down here and for good reasons, too. It was dark and cold and ominous and could quite frankly gave many the creeps. Shipwrecks from years and years ago rotted into nothing but graveyards of human artifacts, ghostly reminders to what power the sea had over everyone and what flippancy she had for life. Not to mention, this was also where Monstro resided. So there weren't many brave souls within the undersea kingdom that made it very far into this abyss of dreariness before deciding they were scared and retreating to the safety of shallower seas. No one with so much as ounce of brains had the so called "bravery" to venture completely to the watery darkness and willingly get into a tussle with Monstro. Only an moron would go there.

Well, if getting into an incredible adventure into this un-scavenged underwater territory made him moron, Lampwick didn't care. He never cared what others thought of him, anyway. Why should her care now? Besides, they all were missing out on a whole bunch of fun!

As they plunged deeper and were getting closer and closer to Monstro, Alexander's nerves started acting up again. While they swam through the ribs of a frame of an wood-stripped sail boat, the fish looked back and gently croaked, "L-Lampwick? D-do you really think this is safe?"

A tempered groan came from the redhead. "Would ya relax?! There ain't nothin' that's gonna happen ta uh, ya hear?"

Oh how the fish truly wanted to believe this and be reassured by Lampwick's promises of safety, but Alexander never was. He was about to ask one final time for assurance but Lampwick froze behind a ship and looked around.

"There he is!"

Sure enough, when Alexander peered around the ship behind Lampwick's shoulder, he saw the biggest whale he could ever lay eyes on. 'Big' didn't even describe this whale, actually. 'Colossal', 'titanic', 'mammoth' felt more fitting to the shear size of this creature. Grey as steel and the area around his face furrowed with creases and wrinkles, it wasn't just his size that was intimidating. The whale was snoozing away on the ocean floor and as he snored, bubbles escaped and, like the fish he chased after, escaped as quickly as they could from Monstro.

Lampwick whistled lowly. " That is one big whale. An' look at dem teeth." With a devious smirk, he looked over to a trembling Alexander and asked, "How soon ya'd think it'd take fer him ta swallow us whole?"

Alexander never answered Lampwick's question but rather said, "Okay, so we've seen Monstro. Let's go home before anything bad happen. . ."

Lampwick groaned and rolled his eyes, quick to tug Alexander's fin before he swam too far away. "Ya ain't serious, Al. We didn't come here ta _look_. I'mma gonna go an' try an' get him ta open his eyes. Ya can stay here and look out fer sharks or someth', arright?"

The blue tang sighed and said, "Alright." The merman, however, swam down, picked up a few pebble and swam closer and closer to Monstro.

Now, Lampwick wasn't completely stupid and well knew what kind of ferocity Monstro held (the fear and tales of other merfolk had taught him that.) Although he might have been forewarned about the dangers with messing with Monstro, he ignored their advice. What was the likelihood that he was gonna be swallowed by that whale? Lampwick was a fast and agile swimmer; he could easily escape from harm's way if it ever got there.

With a grin on his face, Lampwick loaded a pebble into the human contraption, just like he had shown Alexander and practiced at least a dozen times since the discovery of the object. His aim might not have been sharp, but when he released, it shot through the water and hit Monstro.

A grumbling from him resulted in a small, satisfied chuckle from Lampwick, who couldn't believe he had done it, instantly reloaded for another shot at the whale.

Another pebble hit the whale and this time his reaction wasn't a simple little groan but a full eye-open and an annoyed glance, glaring his black, lifeless eyes at the merman.

Thrice Lampwick attempted to pester Monstro and thrice was the limit of how long the whale could stand a bothersome merman at harassing him. It was the final straw and, with a surprising amount of energy and propulsion that Lampwick had not foreseen with a whale of that size, Monstro jutted forward and headed straight to gobble up that pesky merman once and for all.

And the reality hit Lampwick fast that he needed to swim for his live, _now._

His fins flipped as rapidly as he could, his arms trying to frantically help him swim along. Alexander, who had witness this all from a-far was already well ahead of Lampwick. Together they swam, swam with all of their night away, diving around sunken ships, rocks, abysses. They tried to swim in a zig-zag formation to get Monstro off their tails, but it proved to not be working; Monstro was still following close.

They say when you're about to die, your entire life flashes before your eyes. At least, that was their legend that Lampwick had succumbed to believe, anyway. As he swam faster and faster towards the kingdom where they merfolk resided, seeking safety , he could have sworn he saw flashes of his childhood. His mother and father and him in the gardens surrounding the castle when he was no more than three, laughing, smiling, telling him stories- sometimes of merfolk, sometimes of the human world. His mother's lovely voice as she sang him to sleep as a young child. Hearing that his father had disappeared, presumably killed by humans as he was an adventurous soul and liked to push boundaries when it came to human/merfolk contact. Exploring watery caves with his "friends" and then trying to go to the surface despite the rules that no one was allowed to go up to the world above until they were of age and at night and then being ratted on by those so called companions. The first time he actually went to the surface. Finding all of those neat and odd human treasures in the sunken ships. . .

He could feel Monstro come closer and closer, his mouth open as wide as it could go to swallow the merman alive.

And then - a flash of light.

_Dead_, Lampwick told himself as he felt the light surround him and he shut his eyes, a twinge afraid. _Dead, that's what I am. Dead. . ._

A ginger peek open of the eyes - first one and then the other - he saw that he wasn't neither in shuddering darkness of Monstro's mouth nor was he completely consumed by light. He was. . . just there, in the water, alive. The best part of it was Monstro was gone and off of his tail.

Lampwick heaved a sigh of relief and looked to his trembling fish pal floating beside him. "Phew! That's sure was a close one, eh Al? But, boy! What a rush! Highlight of our week, that's fer sure! But better not tell anybody back home about this, arright? C'mon, let's go pick on seagulls or somethin'."

The merman would have surely gone straight to the surface for it had not been for a clearing of a throat behind him.

He gulped. It sounded womanly.

Slowly, Lampwick looked around to see that not only was his mother floating with her arms crossed, her freckled face twisted in what looked like a cross between embarrassment and scolding. Sure, Lampwick could have handled his mother seeing this and hearing what he had said. He could have even handled it with the crowd of merfolk that had gathered behind her, bemused and frightened by the sudden appearance of Monstro the whale chasing the troublemaker merman.

What he wasn't quite sure he could handle was Evangeline, queen of the merpeople, swimming there, trident in hand. Etched on her face wasn't a look of scolding or anger- Queen Evangeline was renowned through the entire sea for having the patience that could even deal with the worst of troublemakers, including Lampwick, without breaking her calm and peaceful face- but rather a look of heavy disappointment. You knew you did something_ really_ bad if she was disappointed like that. Lampwick, try as he might, did felt a twinge guilty when he saw the look on her face.

Having been yelled out so many times in his life by adults to not do this to not mess with that, Lampwick knew that being yelled at wasn't as severe as quiet. If the adults were quiet, their anger was white hot and shouldn't be messed with.

That didn't mean Lampwick tried to break the silence and relieve the thick, heavy water.

"Hi, ma," he said, waving. "H-how was your morin'?'

It was not Lampwick's mother who spoke first from the two women. Rather, is was Evangeline.

Sirens were renowned for their beautiful, bell-like voices that, during storms, tried to comfort and lull the frightened sailors and Evangeline was no exception. But even her melodious and gentle voice couldn't make "Romeo, Alexander, may I have a word with you both?" an less of a blow in front of the whole kingdom.

All the merman and fish could do was follow her command and swim after both Evangeline and Lampwick's mother to the throne room in the underwater castle. The guards shut the large doors behind them, telling them that there was no way out of this.

Although she had done her best to keep her silence (most likely due to her humiliation) it was as soon as the throne-room doors shut, she let loose her frustration with this."I'm just going to say it, but what were you two_ thinking_?! Chasing after Monstro?! You could have had yourselves swallowed whole, killed! You could have had someone else killed- you know how dangerous he is! If it hadn't been for Evangeline you-"

"Elosia," Evangeline's soothing voice broke through again and casted it's spell, silencing the enraged mother. "I believe both Romeo and Alexander are well aware of what could have been the consequences of their actions. My question for them is, why?"

The siren's "why" was not harsh, not angered, so Lampwick felt a little more at ease answering her.

"Well it jus' seemed like fun," the merman answered plainly.

"Fun! You think almost being eaten alive is fun?!" Eloisa snapped.

Once more, Evangeline quieted her and asked her own calm question. "Why did you think it would be fun, Romeo?"

Because it was something all of the other merfolk never had the guts to do. Because it was what parents always warned their children about. Because he _liked_ spitting in the face of danger and doing what others never dared ever since he was little. Lampwick had a lot of reasons, but he didn't really confess any of them to Evangeline nor his mother.

He simply slumped a shoulder and said, "Jus' 'cause."

His mother's face was as red as coral when he answered this but he tried not to notice.

It was Alexander's turn to be questioned. Evangeline turned to the fish and asked, "And you agreed, Alexander?"

"Uhhh. . . " Once the spotlight had been brought to him, the fish wanted nothing to do with this whole plan, as it had always been when he got in trouble because of Lampwick's doings. But Alexander was no stranger to how getting in trouble went with Lampwick and one of the codes of conduct for it was always agreeing to being part of it, even if you really weren't too big of a role in the scheme.

"Well. . . I-I well. . ." The fish sighed and admitted "Yeah."

Evangeline was just as mild as she always was when she delivered, "Both of you know what could have been the consequences for your actions, but unfortunately I don't think the lesson has completely settled in with the both of you and you need to learn to take responsibility for what could have happened-

"But nothin' happened so it's all swell!" Lampwick tried to protest, but from a glare from his mother, he quieted.

The queen resumed. " I am going to speak with your mother for suitable punishment. In the meanwhile, the guards will see both of you home."

Lampwick tried to speak up to protest but he wasn't quick enough because as soon as Evangeline said this, one of the guards was forcing him out of the throne room before he could really think of anything to say and the door shut, cutting him off from contact between he, his mother, and Evangeline.

It was behind closed doors did Elosia melt into a worried mess. Her voice, although it had been tinged with anger when she was in front of her son, now was a completely different emotion: fear.

"Oh, Neptune! I _knew_ this was going to happen one day! He's just too much like his father! H-he jus' doesn't think things through and that was what happened to Stephano! Where is he now? Dead! Killed by humans! Because he didn't think it was a bad idea to have contact with someone from up there!"Her head fell into her hands as the mother shook it vigorously. "And since Romeo was little his father fed him full of human nonsense! What - what if he ends up just like Stephano, destroyed by an obsession with the human world?! Oh-"

Evangeline could rule the sea , have things appear out of thin water, and cast spells but there was nothing so magical about her than her ability to comfort those who needed comfort.

The queen placed a hand on the freckled shoulder of the fretful mother and offered, "We will do all within our power to see that nothing happens like that again." She paused, as an idea struck like lightening to Evangeline and a faint smile spread across her features. " I think I know just the one for the job to look over Romeo."


End file.
